Not a chance

STEPHEN L. GOLDSTEIN COLUMNIST

March 16, 2008|STEPHEN L. GOLDSTEIN COLUMNIST

No, no, a thousand times no.

There shouldn't be a second Florida Democratic primary - and I don't want the original votes counted now.

What Lyndon Johnson said about bad legislation applies to our current dilemma: "You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."

In our case, two wrongs won't possibly make things right.

First wrong: You can't raise a soufflM-i twice. On Jan. 29, in addition to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, there was a full slate of viable candidates.

I voted for Bill Richardson. Who knows how many other Floridians would have voted and for whom if they had thought the original primary counted. To hold a second primary or somehow apportion delegates now would violate the rights of the original candidates - along with mine as a voter.

Second wrong: Charlie Crist and Republicans behind a redo don't care about enfranchising the hoi polloi. They're acting out of raw politics.

They improperly want to engineer a win for Clinton, because they see Hillary as fatally flawed against John McCain and are shaking in their boots at Obama's real threat to win the presidency.

For their part, Florida Dem partisans behind a redo are acting as improperly as Republicans, hoping to sway superdelegates with a Hillary win.

They are reeling from the dashing of their darling's claim to invincibility and inevitability - and simply want to send Obama packing.

Months ago on C-Span, I watched the sorry spectacle of Florida Democrats pleading their case for legitimizing our earliest-ever primary before a smug sub-group of the Democratic National Committee. They should have saved their breath: Their minds were made up.

Their mantra was "We have to enforce party discipline." Their rhetoric had an eerie, embarrassing, fascist feel to it, thanks to Howard Dean's intransigence. So, let the candidate emerge from the convention.

Which leads me to one do-over I'd support: Dumping the disastrous Dr. Dean as head of the DNC. With Kingsley Guy, I say, Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!